Illicit but Sacred

Life goes on like the flowing river taking the pebbles and sands forward with its stream. It moves on. It has no meaning until the love stream through it. Love is such a thing that evaporates our heart into a certain emotion in every moment that make us lives even more than we ever live before in our life. The love is an invisible bond that combines two souls together. Under the heaven like sensation there lies a pain that only a few people can endure who moves forward and rest of all leads their life into hell.

Love came in my life too and I too became a victim of the fire of its pain but not like my best friend, Abhoy. Had it not been he, I would never come to know how grievous a fire of love can be, I would never come to see someone can burn into ashes without producing any heat or smoke but yet he was doing the acting of living.

Abhoy was the best friend of mine. We studied at the same High school and then college. He had always been a bright student than mine, in fact he was the most intelligent student among all the friends we have. Both of us wanted to be an engineer but however I approached a step ahead and he left behind in the second year of our college. He was only twenty when destiny played a gamble with him. I knew what happened because when there was no one to support him, he came to me and cried for hours sitting in front of me.

In our life when love blows a hard kick behind our back, some intelligent people come to console us by saying, “Cry. Forgive. Learn and then move on.” I say they don’t have enough knowledge about love and reality. Yes I do agree that losing someone hurts but that’s not mean everyone manipulate us in the name of love. Yes we can cry, we can learn but how the word ‘forgive’ comes if someone saved us from going toward the grave digging by ourselves?  How can we blame someone who moves away from our life silently for not letting our burning emotion engulf our heart and soul and turn our entire passion into the insanity to possess them completely by forgetting all the realities? Sometimes love is about death. Too much love makes us cross our limit and we become so blind that we can’t see where our life is going. They don’t know the path they were walking on, leads toward the dark grave where there is no way to get back. It’s the moment when lovers decide to commit suicide. If someone’s soul is so strong, they can escape the death but the pain they deal with, more than death. And Abhoy had to deal with that.

After a few months of our college admission, Abhoy achieved more popularity than our entire friends group. Why could not he? If fact he cracked the highest score in the first semester. He achieved the title of the most diligent student in our class. Being a friend of him we started feeling envy toward him, not for his good result. We envied because those beautiful girls in the class used to hang around him and showing their high interest to talk to the best student in the class.

Among all the girls he had a crush on someone but he was too shy to confess that. It was Ahona, a girl as beautiful as a jasmine sprout in the spring evening. Whoever saw her once, they would definitely see her again in their dreams. As the days went by, the intimacy between Ahona and Abhoy was growing. Ahona could understand his love toward her but she knew he would never be able to propose saying her ‘I Love you’ because he was so shy to do that. Abhoy could be stupid but she was not, so she took the initiative. One day we all were sitting together on the college canteen where she saw him stealing some glance at her. She was smart. She did not miss the chance to ask her if there was anything in his mind he wanted to tell her. Yes he wanted but right then her prompt question before all of us made him feeling uneasy that could be seen by his face. He tried to hide his face but Ahona was in no mood to let him go this time. We all were silent and expecting to be happened something dramatic when we heard she asked him again, ‘I have never seen an idiot like you, Abhoy. You are such a…’ she was going to say something but interrupted and banged her fist on the table. She gave an angry look at him that made him frighten. Being nervous, he asked with mumbling, ‘W-h-a-t?... What have I done?’

‘You don’t have gut to tell me.’

‘Tell you what?’ he asked like an innocent boy though he knew what she was talking about. Being furious she blurted, ‘you stupid, why you don’t tell me that you love me?’ we all laughed aloud and Abhoy blushed and lowered his face. Perhaps he was trying to smile and then we all heard him whispering something like, ‘Yes I do, but..’ Right then she stood up and did something that made us stunned. Leaning forward him she grabbed his collar and kissed him.

We had never seen Abhoy being so happy like that. That day he invited all of us at his home for a dinner party. He was so happy that none of us dared to deny his invitation. When it was seven at the evening, all of us reached at him home and saw Ahona was already there. She was talking to Madhobi, the wife of Abhoy’s elder brother. We used to call her by name instead of calling her by Bhabi. Though it was not right but she herself told us to call her by her name as she was at our age who got married before she went to the college. The funny thing was sometimes Abhoy too called her by her name when no one at their home was around. They two were the consummate example of what ‘Best friend’ called. There was no secret Abhoy had in his life that Madhobi did not know or there was no such thing could happen with her without being it shared with Abhoy. They knew each other like the way no one ever did, they understood each other like the way no one could. Even she could not resist herself from sharing him how her relationship was going on with his elder brother who did not give her much time and could not satisfy her desire. Madhobi knew that Abhoy was possessed with a beautiful and soft heart that the girl who would come in his life would be so lucky. She also knew the feelings Abhoy had been cherished for a girl named Ahona from the very beginning. And now when she heard that the girl herself came in his life, she seemed very happy and told him to bring her at home as soon as possible. So he did, he invited all of us to show how happy he was.

After we all were gone taking Ahona with us, Abhoy asked Madhobi how much she liked her. As a reply she said nothing but went inside the room leaving him alone. He could not understand what she was meant. He could remember while the conversation between Ahona and Modhobi, Madhobi asked her if she really love Abhoy. Abhoy was standing beside Ahona. Without looking at him she said she really loved him and she would be beside her forever. ‘Forever is a lie. Let’s see how long it goes.’ They heard Madhobi saying that and by the expression on her face they could not understand if she was serious of just joking.

The first two months their relationship was perfect. Abhoy was so happy because she already considered in his mind that in the near future Ahona would be his life partner forever. The more days went, the more his emotion toward her grew up. After two months or so he noticed her behavior and her love toward him were getting changed. She was not holding her hand like the way she used to do while walking to the college campus. At the dead night when he was missing her a lot, he found her phone was busy. He was getting hurt by all she was doing but yet he did not ask her anything with the fear if she gets angry with him. He sensed she was pushing him away from her heart, from her life. His life was going to hell because she started neglecting him. One day in crying Abhoy shared everything with Madhobi expecting that she would give him any solution but she did not. After listing everything she again went into her room without saying anything.

The very next day he went to the college. As he could not talk to her last night, he had become something desperate to talk to her, to see her. Last night her phone was busy and in the morning it was switched off. After coming to the college he started looking for her everywhere until we told him that we saw her going toward the library room with someone senior. He rushed toward the library and then came back crying like a child. There he saw her kissing a rich senior student who was not even good in study. He was hurt, his dreams were ruined.

It was the night when the nature accompanied with him. Sitting in his room he was crying so the sky was. He could hear it was raining outside heavily with thunderbolts. His sniffing noise of crying was not supposed to go out from his room but yet he saw someone entered inside. Through the darkness in his room he knew who it was. He knew her shadow, he knew her footstep and he knew her smell. Without uttering a word Madhovi came and sat close to him. He was crying. No one in the world knew what was happening with him but she knew. She knew someday it was going to be happened. Sitting at the corner of the bed he was sobbing. She gently placed her hand of his shoulder and he broke out louder. In the dim darkness in the room, Madhobi reached her soft hands on his face to wipe his tears and then took his head close to her and placed it over her breast. Now he was weeping but silently. They could sense his tears were wetting her breast. Both of them stayed still like the way as if the clock stopped working, like the earth forgot to circle around the sun and their soul reborn with a new sensation. Within a moment everything changed. The universal truth that was lying behind their holy kinship now raised its head in revolt. They realized how much they needed each other. They realized the void they had been cherished inside could be filled by each other. In that vicious night both of them had become the insect jumped into the fire of their famished desire.

*

Abhoy’s elder brother, Sailesh had much concern to his business than his family and his beautiful wife, Madhobi. The relationship between Sailesh and Madhobi was not reliable ever since the night she found out a message from a girl’s number on Sailesh’s cell phone that was written, ‘Missing the last night darling, missing desperately to be in your bed ever again.’ Last night means Sailesh was out telling home that he needed to stay out the night as he had some important dealing with some important clients. Madhobi came to know he lied but did not protest about that matter. She cried alone in thinking getting married in her early 20 with the groom her parents chose for her without her consultation. She cried in thinking how she had become a legal prostitute without having the love she deserved from her husband.

Again Sailesh was out and this time not for a single night but for ten days. He told his family that he was going to Mubmai for his business meeting but Madhobi knew he lied. Madhobi already found out two tickets in the pocket of his shirt to visit Goa. Again she did not protest. This time she did not cry because now she had no regret in her life anymore. Now she found a beautiful gift in her life that had been waiting for her. She found the reason to be happy and she found someone who would fulfill every desire she had in her life that her husband had never cared about. The absent of Sailesh made Madhobi happy for the first time in her life.

In the morning Abhoy was getting ready for his college when he sensed someone entered in his room and slammed the door behind. Abhoy looked behind, it was Madhobi. Looking at him she gave a smile that singed she had a secret treasures to her, now that she came to give them all only to him. Their eyes were talking to each other and reflecting the desire to fill a kind of void inside. Placing the smile on her face, she moved toward her slowly and he kept standing still like a Chita remains hidden behind the bush before it jumped over a gazelle. She went close to closer and biting her lips she placed her hand passionately on his shoulder. A shiver went through his veins. Within a moment they found each other on the bed wrapping each other naked. After losing the heaven they were blushed in looking at each other’s eyes. That day he missed the college and spent his entire day on the bed in her arms. Every time the more they touched each other, kissed each other and loved each other, the more their desire grew up and their passion went into higher. Their souls became the slave to their desire.

*

Abhoy was getting changed. Now he was no longer like before. His personality, his behavior and the state of his mind was also getting changed. The concentration he had toward his study was no longer like before and he was found skipping his college every now and then for no reason. Staying most of the time at his home, he inhabited a cat like deportment couched at home in looking for chances. Every time he wanted to see her and wanted to be with her. Though there were many members in the family she had to take care about but yet most of the time she was found close to him and sometimes inside the room giving the dust in everyone’s eyes. Whenever she was not around and busy with some works in the kitchen, he started burning inside and looking for excuses to go to kitchen or calling her in his room ordering some tea or something else. Madhobi could see Abhoy was getting weak toward her and losing his own world but her responsibilities failed to beat up her wicked desire.

Since the morning it was raining so he found a good excuse to skip the college for the day. His exam was ahead and seeing him skipping the college now a days, his parents seemed he was making the preparation for his exam studying at home. In the morning sitting on his study table he was flipping the pages of his book but it seemed not interesting like before. While he was trying to read, he was looking at the door again and again hoping Madhobi would come. The more the time was passing, the more he was getting desperate to have her close. His desperation set the fire inside him when he thought about the last night.

Last night when it was midnight, he was not being able to sleep. His eyes wanted to see her and his entire heart and soul wanted to be with her. At that midnight the entire house was sleeping. Unable to stay anymore, he went in front of her room and saw the door was kept ajar. He went inside and heard a noise of sobbing. She was crying. Bewildered in his thought he went close to her and wrapping his arms around her he asked why she was crying.

‘Everyone at the house don’t want me talk to you or stay with you most of the time. They don’t like me around you. Your mother told me to leave you alone. How would I do? I can’t live without you.’ being in his arms Madhobi faltered and started sobbing more. Taking her face close to him, he started kissing all over her face and slowly his lips came down across her soft neck. She stopped sobbing and grabbed him like the way she would never leave him until the dead would come to apart. They acted like wild beasts that were in hunger for thousands of year. They spent the entire night in loving each other on the bed. That night she loved him a lot that was enough to make him crazy even in thinking about it alone.

Being in love after living together like heaven, now the hell came to their life. Sailesh came back from his business trip though it was nothing about his business. When people are in love, god gives them extra beauty in both inside and outside. Mahobi was in love and it seemed she was looking more beautiful than ever before. When Sailesh saw her after many days, he could not remember if it was the same girl he used to neglect even touching her in those nights lying on the same bed. He had always someone else in his life who was not more beautiful than his wife but more lustful and lewd on the bed that Madhobi never tried to be. Now seeing the glory of her beauty and the extra fondness in her behavior, a strange desire came to his mind. A man hidden inside him wanted her again with a new passion. Now he started spending more times at home. He was trying to mend the gash in their relationship that was afflicted in all those years for the want of love. Madhobi could see what he was doing but she had nothing to do now. Now she came so far that there was no way to go back. Now she loved Abhoy and she knew he also loved her. In fact he loved her more than anything in this world.

Things were getting worse in her life. Now she saw her husband was trying to pull her close but she did not want to go. She could go to her husband by betraying herself but she could never think about doing that to Abhoy. She knew how much he loved her. Any girl, who would get someone to love them like Abhoy, would be luckiest girl in the world and she was one of them. He was crazy about her and she knew that well. As Sailesh had come back and staying most of the time around her, she could see the suffering Abhoy was going through for not having her close. Sometimes his suffering made her cry. Sometimes she wanted to rush to him and being in his arms she wanted to give enormous love wringing her heart till the last drop comes out but she could not. Alas! She had nothing to do but praying for him.

Abhoy was going through the hell. He had become someone living without soul. You would love everything your beloved loves but not the negligence given by her. Every time he was crying sitting in his own room. She kept the door ajar filling his heart with the hope she would enter inside and give him so much love but it never happened. The fire of agony kept him burning from his inside.

Once at the night Abhoy was sitting in his room in the darkness putting the light off. It was midnight. Sometimes ago he was trying to sleep but unable to do that he sat up on his bed. Her thought was killing him. It’s been three days neither she came to his room nor she called him like before. He could remember how beautiful his life was. Some days ago he was the happiest person in this world but now he cursed himself for living in this earth. He thought how Madhobi used to come to his room in the morning to wake him up bringing the happiness with her to fill his life. He could remember those beautiful nights where he used to fall asleep in her arms like a child wrapping a single blanket around them. Life was like a dream. Now all became memories, not sweet but horrible. Thinking about those days means feeling someone was slitting his heart into pieces and the blood was coming out through his eyes.

Unable to sleep Abhoy came out from his room and stood in front of the door of his brother, Sailesh’s room. Madhobi was inside, he thought and his possible thinking of being two of them on the same bed was telling him to die. He wanted to break through the door and rescue his soul that was lying with someone else. He wanted to go to her and taking her head on his chest he wanted to scream the entire world that she was only his and no one else’s. Unable to do that he collapsed there on the floor and kept weeping. He was only twenty and he was not so strong enough to bear all those pain. His heart was so balmy that sometimes he was thinking to commit suicide to rescue himself from the suffering.

From the inside Madhobi could hear someone was weeping sitting outside the door. She knew who it was but could not help him. She was weeping too. She also wanted to rush to him and wipe his tears dry with her hand and console him not to cry. If it was not possible, at least she wanted to go to him and holding each other, together they would cry. The sniff of weeping was still coming to her ear. She looked beside and saw Sailesh was sleeping besides her being tired. Sometimes before he made her forced to give him pleasure and she had to do that. She had been crying since then. She did not want to do that but the vermilion on her forehead reminded her that her body was a slave of someone’s desire.

In the early morning, when everyone was still sleeping, Madhobi came to Abhoy’s room. The bed was empty. She found him asleep sitting on the floor holding the leg of the bed. It was the sing how much he was crying. Seeing him like that tears broke the dam of her eyes. She always wanted someone in her life who would love her a lot but someone who is suffering and burning inside only in loving her, she never wanted that.

*

Madhobi had no idea that love could be so dangerous like that. She had never thought that love could make someone lost in everything and make someone’s life ruined so easily. Before her eyes, she could see how his life was going through the hell. Abhoy stopped going to the college. He stopped talking to his friends. For the first time in his life he failed in his exam. No one at home knew about that but Madhobi knew. The professor from his coaching class called at his home to complaint against him for being failed but fortunately the call was picked up by her. She did not say anyone about it because she knew it all happened because of her. At his home he was not behaving normal like before. Madhobi had no courage to go in front of him but if by change she could come across him, he would rush into his room and then all through the day, he kept himself locked inside the room. God knew what he used to do inside alone but sometimes when she was passing by his room, she could hear the sniffing of his weeping coming out penetrating the door.

It was the day Sailesh was out after staying long six days at home. In those six days he did not keep Madhobi away from his sight for a single moment. Today as he went out, Madhobi felt a venomous thorn had been removed from her throat. In that early noon the entire house seemed solitary as everyone was either out for their work or taking the slumber in their respective rooms. It was a great chance to meet his Abhoy. She was afraid to stand before him. She was guilty for whatever was happing with him. She stood in front of his room and pushed the door with her finger. Thanks god, It was not locked from the inside. Madhobi went inside and saw him collapsed on his bed prostrated turning his upside down without having any pillow to his below. He was sleeping. She went close to his and sat on the bed. Without waking him up she took his head on her lap and her fingers were found flicking his curly hear. In doing that her eyes brimmed with tears and a few drops fell over his skin. He opened his eyes and found him on her lap. Abhoy could remember the last time she loved him. It was only six days before but those six days seemed eternity to him.

‘I hurt you so much, isn’t that?’ her voice quivered as she faltered. Abhoy said nothing but kept looking at her. There was no tear in his eyes. How could there be? The fire of love made his inside a desert.

‘The love I got from you, I’ll never forget ever after I’ll die. You gave me everything you have but see how selfish I’m. I could give you nothing but tears. I made you cry a lot, I made you suffer a lot. See I’m a curse in your life.’ her voice quivered as she broke into tears. His head was still on her lap and looking at his face, Madhobi was passing her hands gently and often caressing over his innocent face like he was a child to her.

‘You are the one I can die for.’ For the first time Abhoy spoke out but there seemed no affection in his voice, only so much pain could be seen in his eyes.

‘Yes I know.’ she faltered having a sea of tears in her eyes. It was all she could say.

‘I can’t live like that so long. Life seems so hard to live like that. I can’t live without you. Can you do me a fever to keep me alive?’ he whispered like someone telling his dead wish.

‘What?’ her voice was broken.

‘Will you take me somewhere with you where no one could find us, where we’ll live together happily ever after? I promise I’ll love you a lot till my last breath.’ He paused for a moment and seeing she was silent, he said, ‘You’ve no choice except doing that. I’ll die soon if my life goes on like that. I know you don’t want me to die. Do you?’

No, she would never want that. He had already suffered a lot for her but now no more, she thought in her mind. Madhobi sat up from the bed and went to close the door. Love begins when the desire raise its wings. Six days they could not love each other but today here it was. On the bed they loved each other a lot. Together they wrapped each other, kissed each other, touched their souls each other, felt the heaven each other and most of all they cried cuddling each other. The entire afternoon they devoted each other completely inside the room. Today every time he touched her body and went inside her, he found a new passion in her. Today while she loved him, tears were flowing through her eyes.

Abhoy could not remember when the time passed. Now it was evening when he opened his eyes. As far as he could remember, his head was resting on her lap and she was giving his pleasure by running her fingers through his hear and passing her hands gently and often caressing over him. He could not remember when he had fallen asleep and how long he had been taking the beauty sleep. After waking up his eyes were looking for her but she was not around. In the evening he could hear a noise was coming from the down street through his window. It was annoying him. He shut the window and came out from his room to wash his face with some cold water. Outside the room Sailesh was sitting on the couch. He seemed lost in his thought and his gaze was down on the floor. Business disorder, Abhoy thought. The noise was still coming from the down street.

As he approached toward the bathroom, he saw the maid who had been working at their house for the long five years, was climbing down the stairs from the roof to the ground floor in crying. Something must be wrong, he thought. Being baffled in his mind, he followed the maid and descended on the gate from fifth floor. The noise was coming from there. A lot of people gathered together and some of them were familiar to him. Yes, his father was there too and his mother was crying sitting on the street. Abhoy went close to them and saw the place was wet with blood. He went closer pushing the crowd aside and saw the girl who had been with him sometimes before giving him enormous love, now he saw her lying on the street. People were saying she fell down from the roof of the top floor by slipping her leg because there was not fence on the roof. Everyone seemed it was an accident but he knew well what it was. Seeing her dead, he did not cry but stood still losing his own existence from the world. The sight made his heart like a stone that even a single drop tears did not come out from his eyes. From that day on he never dared to fall asleep by his own.